Sorry, party people, but Lost Isle, the popular Delta resort, will not reopen for the fifth summer running. The reasons are red tape and the owner's decision to play it safe.

Owner Dave Wheeler, who has surmounted the herculean requirements of around 40 bureaucracies, finally got most all of the permits necessary to rebuild the popular resort on Acker Island along the Deep Water Channel west of Stockton.

But when the time came for building in 2013, Wheeler's construction managers pointed out he was erecting $1.8 million worth of bar/restaurant, stage and other facilities on an island that has flooded four times since the 1990s.

Wanting to protect his investment, Wheeler decided to dredge the harbor and add rip-rap and other levee bracing to ensure against floods.

But that kicked the bureaucracy back in.

"The problem is the Department of Fish and (Wildlife)," said Wheeler. "You have to do all this work in a window so it doesn't disturb the fish."

The window is fall of this year - meaning Wheeler plans to reopen in spring of 2015. He says he's got an agreement with rocker Sammy Hagar to kick off the party.

Last Monday the Fire Department fought a fire at an abandoned factory at Hazelton and Aurora streets: the incredible disappearing factory I wrote about a month ago. The factory was being carried away I-beam-by-I-beam by metal thieves with big tools and trucks, as well as by a horde of homeless people who were living en masse in a wooden back-building.

Police caught one gang, the thieves with the truck. The swarm of homeless "urban miners" remain.

Though the fire's cause is undetermined, it is a safe bet it was caused by them, possibly accidentally.

The outlandishness of this property law breakdown raises a couple questions. The first is, at what point does the Police Department shift resources to property crimes?

Sure, violent crime is priority No. 1. Still. When you can pull a truck up to a three-story factory in broad daylight and steal it, is it time to revisit priorities?

No, it's not, said city spokeswoman Connie Cochran.

Money is short, Cochran said. The chief is struggling to staff up a decimated department and fight gang violence with rookies. Which he is doing successfully. But that's about the limit.

"Would you rather protect people's lives or a vacant warehouse?" Cochran asked. "Decisions like that need to be made."

The second question is what to do about Stockton's outsized and very public homeless population.